


To Look Into The Mirror Without Flinching Affair

by Kira_K



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Illya POV, KGB background, Unrequited Love, past torture (against OC), threats of rape (against OC)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-21 07:21:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4820354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kira_K/pseuds/Kira_K
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the many goals of Illya Kuryakin is to look into the mirror without flinching at his own reflection. As long as Gaby is unafraid of him, this is a goal he can keep. </p><p> </p><p>"He allows Gaby to make the first move, makes his interest as clear as he can without closing the final distance and lets Gaby sleep when the drinks prove to be too much for her.<br/>In the morning there is still no fear in Gaby’s eyes, only hangover, so Illya congratulates himself."</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Look Into The Mirror Without Flinching Affair

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilery, more descriptive warnings at the end notes. 
> 
> Movie!Illya is large and strong - and yet. A man with his background, who willingly betrays his orders/country for a watch is somebody who has more feelings than he wants to let on; and a man who is one of the best of the KGB is somebody who can put away his feelings and get the job done.
> 
> Edit at 03/10/2015: I just realized that Illya's name has two l-s in it. Sorry?

Illya is a large man. He knows this and he knows how to use his strength and endurance and weight and height to his advantage. He also knows when to hunch his shoulders, how to touch with gentleness and how to take a hit. (He hates taking a punch without retaliation but he can do it. He hates a lot of things that he can do.) 

When Gaby pushes him to the ground he lets himself fall, lets her have the advantage. He doesn’t turn them over, doesn’t restrain her fists. He knows – learnt at his mother’s knees – women will allow many things with a smile when they are forced to do so. And Illya swore a long time ago to not be that man whose girlfriend’s eyes are covered with too much make-up to hide the yellowing-blue of a slap, or whose eyes are always darting futilely to the side, seeking escape from their own lover. He allows Gaby to make the first move, makes his interest as clear as he can without closing the final distance and lets Gaby sleep when the drinks prove to be too much for her. 

In the morning there is still no fear in Gaby’s eyes, only hangover, so Illya congratulates himself. 

 

Years ago, when he was still more of a boy than a man, when the KGB wanted him to hit a woman, he hesitated for a minute. He knew it was a test, like many others, and he did not wish to fail. While the KGB wasn’t above of shooting somebody in a dark room, they rarely did it to their own agents without reason. This test wouldn’t be a reason enough. However, Illya wanted to pass all his tests and he wanted to be good enough to start to earn his keep – as his mentor nicely put it to him when Illya was led to the bare concrete room with a single chair and a bound woman. 

“Who is she?” he asked. Was she a traitor? An enemy agent? Another student whose turn it was to learn how to behave when they were interrogated? “What are my objectives?” 

“Doesn’t matter. She has information; she refused to talk.” Illya studied her, the way her bonds were tight enough to cut into her skin but not enough to be truly dangerous right now, the way she had all her clothes on her. So it was probably another student whose role was being an enemy agent.

He crouched in front of her, lifted her chin and forced her to see him. Her eyes were open but not really afraid. “Tell us what you know and you’ll be free,” he offered because sometimes it was that easy. She refused to answer and Illya nodded once, before he forced himself to see only an enemy agent they would be exchanging soon: so no permanent damage, no scaring so deep it would disfigure her. He started with an open palmed slap, plenty painful but even more humiliating. 

In the end it took ninety minutes and a knife to break her but they both passed: her for her endurance, him, for his willingness to hurt women (and his correct guess at not maiming her.) After, Oleg asked him if he would have gone further, if he had any more ideas. There was a glint in his eyes that warned Illya to be careful if he didn’t want to end up as an interrogator full-time. 

“If necessary, I could come up with something but most people break from simple pain soon enough,” he replied. 

“What about rape?” And there was the cruelty in Oleg’s eyes; the cruelty that made Illya both wary and oddly comforted. 

“Not with an audience,” Illya said, stiff despite wanting to be untouchable. Oleg looked at him and Illya continued despite himself, thinking it through for both of their sake. “I don’t enjoy forcing sex. I could have threatened her with it, with giving her to the guards and even do it if that seemed like the way to break her but it damages people. It would have been more than what you wanted me to do.”

Oleg nodded, thoughtful. “So, you can do it? To a beaten up, crying woman who begs you to stop?” 

And Illya knew that the question was only partially from the cruelty. There was curiosity in it, to see what made him thick, a gentler interrogation than the one he had attended but no less through. “I saw not a woman but an enemy agent. I wouldn’t rape a woman… without orders.”

That seemed to satisfy his mentor and Illya was left alone to wash up. It took a surprisingly short time to feel clean again. It took a bit longer to look into the mirror without flinching but Illya forced himself to bear it, to see his own expressionless eyes and remember the way the ‘enemy agent’ cried. 

When he meets the woman in the cafeteria a month later Illya nods to her and doesn’t feel any shame the way her arm is still in a cast. 

 

And Gaby betrays him. And Illya cannot unsee the woman who was lying on top of him, who slapped him, who forced him to prattle about architect when nobody would know anything about it on the party and nobody would ask him leading questions about the Italian architects or the Spanish Steps. (Illya can bullshit with the best of them and it is not unusual for the Soviet propaganda to claim anything and everything to be done by somebody who is related to the U.S.S.R.)

Solo is worse for the wear, then Waverly explains that Gaby was an enemy agent all along, only not, she was a friendly agent, or rather, a collaborator with the Western world, and all Illya can think about is the way she wasn’t afraid from him. Perhaps, he would feel better if she had been, perhaps.

 

They survive. 

 

Illya betrays his country and accepts a drink he has no intention of finishing. 

 

Waverly invites them all to his new agency: ‘permanently on loan’ from their own. Illya watches the sun and tries to see the endgame. He runs scenario after scenario and comes up with the worse if he accepts: interrogation by CIA, betraying the Soviet Union and shot to dead in a black alley or incarnated for life. The worse if he refuses: Interrogation by the KGB for betraying the Soviet Union and shot to dead in a black alley or deported for life to Siberia. But the best scenarios vastly differ: if Waverly’s offer is genuine then he exchanges one leash with another but probably for a less cruel man; he keeps his partners and isn’t forced to shoot either of them in the near future, perhaps even saves the world from the remaining Nazis and other scums. If he goes home Oleg would be happy and cruel as is his wont and his next (or the next after) mission would be to infiltrate U.N.C.L.E. – because they invited him and the KGB had moles in all of the other agencies, and he would end up in the same place but with orders to kill everybody who would discover his true loyalties. 

So, he accepts. If Waverly can force Oleg to drop his leash Illya wants it to happen; and if it is picked up by Waverly and his inbred British stoicism, all the better. 

 

It is not Waverly. Gaby is the one in charge, little chop-shop girl who never was afraid of Illya—and Illya looks at her with hooded eyes and holds out his palms for her. He still cannot see only the agent in her; the fearless, beautiful woman makes her other qualities pale. 

“What?” she asks, frowning and uncomfortable. She thinks they are going to fight her; fight her orders because she is a woman or because of her lack of experience. Illya can see it the way her shoulders are braced for a fight, the way she seeks to make herself taller by heels. 

Illya nudges her with his open hands. “Give me your hands,” he says and there is a flash of understanding in Gaby’s eyes. She puts her hands gingerly into his, wary for once. 

Illya smiles and turns their hands before bringing them up to his own face. He doesn’t slap himself but the offer is there. He doesn’t hold her hands tightly; she can free herself anytime she wants. “Things change,” he says because they do. He is no longer only a KGB agent; she is no longer a simple mechanic in an illegal chop-shop in East-Germany, “but not everything.”

Illya allows her time to think, not moving, waiting. No slaps come: he counts that as a point for him. No caress comes either: a point against. She pulls her hands free, (a point against) but it’s a slow, reluctant movement (a point for). “Illya…” her voice is soft and there is tenderness in it but Illya already knows the next words will be a rejection. She spares him and only shakes her head. 

“Don’t,” he says when she opens her mouth once again, after taking a step away. He wants neither pity nor platitudes. It is not alright but he sort of understands her. And, “I’d rather you never be afraid of saying me no.” 

There is an honest pain on her face for a brief moment. “Don’t worry, Illya. I won’t ever say yes to anybody out of fear. I promise you.”

“Good.” Illya swallows and looks away. Gaby slips out of the room before he looks up and Illya looks at his fingers. His hands are still, the rage he was afraid of is nowhere in his blood. (It will come, later, when Solo pokes the still fresh wound; and it will leave a nice round hole in the wall.) He looks into the mirror and tries to force his mind to think of Gaby as only his handler. It doesn’t really work; not that Illya thought it would. Yet, after another month, it does. It is not even a proper heartbreak; only a crack across the organ but Illya considers it a well earned scar. After all he can still see his own reflection without flinching. 

 

~end~

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilery warnings: Illya tortures an OFC as part of the KGB training. It is not described but still there. Threats of rape and rape are discussed but nobody rapes anybody within the story. There is a brief mention of domestic violence /abused women as well but only in passing. If a tag is missing, please let me know! 
> 
> Comments, kudos make my day. <3


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